February 23, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Starfighters Space: A rocket startup company that uses a F-104 Star Fighter as its first stage
Mostly fantasy. The company claims to have a fleet of seven F-104s, but no second stage rocket yet, nor any date for when it will be ready. According to this slideshow [pdf] designed to garner investors, it will be based on hypersonic technology.
- Technical comparison between SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn
The only comparison that really matters is that the former is about to fly for the first time, while the latter remains in an never-ending state of limbo.
- Rocket Lab completes dress rehearsal countdown for its next launch at Wallops
The company for pr purposes is making believe there is a competition between Wallops and its New Zealand launchsite as to who will launch first. Both are preparing to launch when ready — which is all the crews really care about, if the company is focused on the right things.
- Relativity announces March 8, 2023 for the first test launch of its Terran-1 rocket
The link takes you to Relativity’s live stream, set to go live in 12 days. As the first test launch, the possibility of failure is high, which makes the company’s willingness to live stream it quite courageous.
- Russia now targets a July 13, 2023 launch date for its Luna-25 Moon lander
Though this mission has been delayed endlessly, and Russia has also been forced to delay its later planned unmanned lunar probes due to its lack of certain components formerly obtained from the west before its invasion of the Ukraine, I now expect this launch to happen on that date or reasonable close to it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Starfighters Space: A rocket startup company that uses a F-104 Star Fighter as its first stage
Mostly fantasy. The company claims to have a fleet of seven F-104s, but no second stage rocket yet, nor any date for when it will be ready. According to this slideshow [pdf] designed to garner investors, it will be based on hypersonic technology.
- Technical comparison between SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn
The only comparison that really matters is that the former is about to fly for the first time, while the latter remains in an never-ending state of limbo.
- Rocket Lab completes dress rehearsal countdown for its next launch at Wallops
The company for pr purposes is making believe there is a competition between Wallops and its New Zealand launchsite as to who will launch first. Both are preparing to launch when ready — which is all the crews really care about, if the company is focused on the right things.
- Relativity announces March 8, 2023 for the first test launch of its Terran-1 rocket
The link takes you to Relativity’s live stream, set to go live in 12 days. As the first test launch, the possibility of failure is high, which makes the company’s willingness to live stream it quite courageous.
- Russia now targets a July 13, 2023 launch date for its Luna-25 Moon lander
Though this mission has been delayed endlessly, and Russia has also been forced to delay its later planned unmanned lunar probes due to its lack of certain components formerly obtained from the west before its invasion of the Ukraine, I now expect this launch to happen on that date or reasonable close to it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“Russia now targets a July 13, 2023 launch date for its Luna-25 Moon lander”
Vlad needs a win. Now.
It’s a deadline in more ways than one, Roscosmos!
Eh, nothing wrong with honest PR. They are not hyping imaginary rockets like still in development.
Beck has said previously that the biggest hindrance in the process is the red tape, not the rockets. The second thing is the payload being ready. I assume that the payload is good for these.
” . . . a competition between Wallops and its New Zealand launchsite as to who will launch first.”
And so, a new spectator sport is born. I am genuinely surprised that no sports book is handling the space launch action. Once gambling-level money gets involved, government objections tend to go away. Government could even profit from action tied to already established state gambling.
In the comparison between Starship/Superheavy vs. New Glenn, at first I was impressed with Starship, as it carries twice as much to orbit (100 t vs. 50 t), and it looks only slightly larger. However, Starship/Superheavy is about twice the volume as New Glenn, so it stopped seeming quite so impressive as the side-by-side comparison made it look. In addition, New Glenn’s first stage does its job with 1/4 of the thrust (4 million pounds rather than 16 million). New Glenn’s upper stage does the job with 1/10th the thrust as Starship’s maximum thrust.
It looks to me as though Starship/Superheavy has left quite a bit of room for other companies to find improvements and compete successfully.
Edward: I took the liberty of editing your comment to change “New Shepard” to “New Glenn”, the correct rocket.
An F-104 was a lightweight interceptor. I can’t imagine it is going to carry a lot of payload to a significant altitude.
Terran I is the smaller one—You have Terran R
Jeff Wright: You are right of course. Now corrected to Terran-1.
Thanks, Robert. Clearly I was commenting while tired or asleep, similar to Driving While Intoxicated.
When you first started these Quick space link posts, I thought that they were lightweight and wouldn’t last long, but they turned out to be often interesting and fun. I suspect that this is because only a few of the best of the many possible links are chosen.
Jay,
Thank you for doing the work of finding these links. Perhaps you glean them from your regular web surfing, but you go to the trouble of passing them on to Robert.
Edward: Because as a general rule Jay’s quick links come from Twitter, most of them are very lightweight, the kind of things I normally wouldn’t post. Putting them into this one post allows them to appear here, without giving them more importance then they often deserve.
And I am very thankful for Jay’s willingness to pass them on to me.
Looks like a TFR has been issued around Wallops for March 11th.
I know others launch from there, but this could be the upcoming launch of Capella 9 and 10 on an Electron.